Lost in Suburbia: Row, row, row your house

There are some places where it’s good to have water. Water in the coffee maker is good. Water in the bathtub is good. Water in the basement … not so much.

At first it was just a little bit of water, but soon I started finding larger puddles. And then small rivers. Channeling my inner Lewis and Clark — or maybe just Lewis since I’m only one person — I tracked the river back to its source and discovered the culprit.

“The washing machine is leaking,” I told my husband.

“How bad?” he wondered.

“Think Niagara Falls, but without the big drop.”

“Call the plumber,” he ordered.

I threw towels down on the ground to soak up the mess, and then ran upstairs to make a quick bathroom stop before cleaning up the flood. But when I got to the bathroom, I discovered another issue.

“The toilet is leaking,” I told my husband.

“Are you kidding me?” he demanded.

“Honey, I have water in the basement and water in the bathroom. I’m out of towels and the dog is swimming upstream. I wouldn’t kid about this.”

“Did you call the plumber yet?” he asked.

“No, it’s raining outside so I was waiting to see if the roof leaked.”

“CALL THE PLUMBER!”

Being an optimist, I always try to look for the bright side of every tragedy. On the up side, with so much water everywhere, I figured I wouldn’t need to wash the floors that day. However, after using every towel in the house, I had no way to wash them because the washer was broken. Furthermore, we were in the middle of a home renovation and only had one toilet – which was now broken, too. As far as I could tell, the only way to turn this into something positive … was to move.

“Maybe we should forget renovating the house and just turn it into an ark,” I suggested. “We already have the flood part covered.”

“Call. The. Plumber,” he sighed.

Since the resale value on arks wasn’t very good right now, anyway, I decided to bail on that idea and call the plumber. Apparently, though, there must have been an epidemic of leaking washing machines and broken toilets because the plumber wasn’t available for two days.

Deciding I needed to set some rules during this trying time, I back stroked out of the bathroom and found the kids watching a movie in the family room.

“OK guys, here’s the deal. The washing machine is broken so you can’t wear any clothes and the toilet is broken so you can’t go to the bathroom.”

Page 2 of 2 - They stared at me in mute silence.

“OK, fine,” I sighed. “You can wear some clothes, but try not to get them too smelly. And you can use the toilet but don’t flush.”

I thought for another minute. “In fact, don’t do anything in the house that could possibly cause a leak, a flood or a tidal wave.”

“Don’t worry, Mom, we get it,“ said my son. “Relax. Come watch the movie with us.”